Historicizing Real Estate: The East India Company in Early Colonial Bombay

Property-as-real-estate emerged in Bombay at least by the turn of the nineteenth century. Real estate is historicized through previously unexplored archival sources (qualitative and quantitative) by analyzing how property was transacted in a colonial port, and how it became embedded in global circui...

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Published in:Enterprise & society Vol. 25; no. 4; pp. 1241 - 1263
Main Author: Issar, Sukriti
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.12.2024
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Subjects:
19th century
Accumulation
Archives & records
Auctions
Built environment
Circuits
Colonialism
Companies
Deeds
Financial instruments
Geography
Global economy
Humanities and Social Sciences
International finance
Legal institutions
Markets
Prices
Property
Publicity
Real estate
Registration
Sales
Sociology
Trends
India
early colonialism
East India Company
real estate
South Asia
ISSN:1467-2227, 1467-2235, 1467-2227
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Property-as-real-estate emerged in Bombay at least by the turn of the nineteenth century. Real estate is historicized through previously unexplored archival sources (qualitative and quantitative) by analyzing how property was transacted in a colonial port, and how it became embedded in global circuits of commerce and the accumulation strategies of locals and the English East India Company. The paper demonstrates the existence by this time of legal institutions of publicity and property registration, specialized intermediaries, price-finding mechanisms such as auctions, and imaginaries of a property market as an abstract entity marked by general trends and values. Contrary to the literature that sees prices in this period as erratic and inconsistent, a systematic analysis of prices suggests a rationalized and standardized property market. These findings push back the timeline usually associated with the development of real estate in India.
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ISSN:1467-2227
1467-2235
1467-2227
DOI:10.1017/eso.2023.40